


What Couldn't Be

by truthsetfree



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-16
Updated: 2012-07-16
Packaged: 2017-11-10 02:23:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/461218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/truthsetfree/pseuds/truthsetfree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time she thought of it, she laughed nervously and said it couldn't be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Couldn't Be

It couldn't be. It simply couldn't be.

Jack Harkness, by that name or any other, by his very definition meant a wink, a caress, a dazzling smile, a ready invitation. Her own mental dictionary supplied visual and audio memories of Jack Harkness walking, running, dancing, leaning, sprawling, kissing, clinging, leaping, catching, shoving, punching, kicking, shielding, fast-talking, groping, stripping, laughing, drinking, betting, gambling, tumbling, taking one for the team, and dying.

He held hands, rubbed necks, stroked hair, and pushed buttons.

He drew ire and fire with equal ease, never flinched or gave an inch.

He provided needed distraction and spoke more truth with his actions than with his words.

He was tactile, carnal, hedonistic, he was…Jack.

The very hint of any thought that he might someday be that face in a jar, cut off from physical contact, unable to interact, unsmiling, unable to be Jack- it made her pale, sent a shiver down her spine, made her feel like she should just stop thinking of it immediately because if she didn't she might cry or vomit and she wasn't sure which would come first or which would be worse.

Because it was WRONG.

It was the most horrifying thing she could think of, for that to be him.

Trapped in a life he couldn't escape by dying until the Universe was good and ready for him to do so.

Trapped in a body that could not touch, could not move on its own.

Trapped in a jar, where others could not touch him, where he depended on others to move, where he could only look out and be stared at.

No one would ever see the tears in a nutrient bath.

No one would know, no one would ever connect her definition of Jack Harkness, and that face.

It couldn't be. It simply couldn't be.

No.

She prayed as hard as she ever had for any of her patients as they teetered on the brink. Where medicine and science stops and all that's left is the hope and desperation and sheer human will of prayer.

Because there had been nothing left, not a trace of Jack in that face.

The Face of Boe.

No.


End file.
